THAMES WATER’S
LEAKAGE PERFORMANCE
At privatisation (1989) the Thames Region’s leakage rate was estimated at 650 million litres per day, mostly in London with its problem of ageing mains, 50% of which are over 100 years old.
More recently, Thames Water’s (TW’s) leakage performance has been subject to wide variations:-
TW fined £140 million by Ofwat (government water regulator) for failing to meet targets since 2001/2. However, Ofwat agreed to waive this fine if TW reduced the leakage rate substantially – hence some annual improvements since 2005/6.
TW’s published customer research indicates that “Our customers want us to... reduce leakages... to bring (them) into line with the (rest of the UK water) industry.”
This would mean that TW’s leakage performance should be brought down to 350/400 million litres/day to match the industry average.
NB However, the more TW improve their leakage performance below current levels, the more they undermine their own reservoir case!
In TW’s latest plan they have halved their previous London mains replacement programme. Consequently, they will fail to reach their leakage reduction target by some 200 million litres/day. Substantial additional volumes of treated water will consequently be wasted.